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Dom Robinson reviews
Never turn your back.
Never surrender your heart.
Paramount
- Cert:
- Cat.no: PHE 8030
- Running time: 111 minutes
- Year: 1997
- Pressing: 2000
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 21 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Surround
- Languages: 3 languages available
- Subtitles: 12 languages available
- Widescreen: 2.35:1 (Panavision)
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras: Theatrical Trailer, Director’s Commentary
Director:
- Philip Noyce
(Clear And Present Danger, Patriot Games, The Saint, Sliver)
Producers:
- David Brown, Robert Evans, William J. MacDonald and Mace Neufield
Screenplay:
- Jonathan Hensleigh (Die Hard With a Vengeance) and Wesley Strick (Cape Fear (1991))
Music:
- Graeme Revell
(The Crow, Hard Target)
Soundtrack includes:
- David Bowie – Dead Man Walking
- Daft Punk – Da Funk
- Sneaker Pimps – 6 Underground
- Chemical Brothers featuring Noel Gallagher – Setting Sun
- Underworld – Pearl’s Girl
- Everything But The Girl – Before Today
- Orbital – The Saint
- Duran Duran – Out Of My Mind
Cast:
- Simon Templar: Val Kilmer
Dr. Emma Russell: Elisabeth Shue
Ivan Tretiak: Rade Serbedzija
Ilya Tretiak: Valery Nikolaev
Chief Inspector Teal: Alun Armstrong
…and the voice of Roger Moore
The Saintis the big-screen version of the television series starringVal Kilmer in the role first taken in the 60’s with Roger Mooreas the man of mystery – and was revived in the 70’s with Ian Ogilvyin “Return of the Saint”.
The story centres around a cold-fusion reactor developed by Dr. Emma Russell(Elisabeth Shue) which can provide many uses including allowing a carto drive for 55 million miles on just one gallon of fuel. Naturally, there aresome other interested parties such as the head of Russia’s oil and gascorporation Ivan Tretiak (Rade Serbedzija) and he’ll do everything hecan to get it by sending out his henchmen to do the dirty work.
In order to avoid capture by Tretiak’s men or the police, Simon Templar mustchange disguises many times. This also enables him to get information aboutEmma’s device but how can he control his feelings for her once he begins tofall in love?
Val Kilmer has had his share of good roles throughout his career, namely asJim Morrison in The Doors, the ghost of Elvis in True Romanceand other roles in Top Secret and Heat. However, his performancein The Saint cannot be counted in that list at all. With each newdisguise he doesn’t increase the depths and complexity of his characters asscriptwriter Jonathan Hensleigh would have us believe – he just looksmore and more like Val Kilmer (!)
Elisabeth Shue has never been one of my favourite actresses, usually plumpingfor the token bimbo role – and her performance as a nuclear scientist fails toconvince, especially following on from her appearances in Cocktail, TheKarate Kid, Soapdish and the last two installments of the Back To TheFuture trilogy.
One wonders why Alun Armstrong signed up for this film as his rolecomprises of a brief scene early on and a few lines during the last fiveminutes.
The picture and sound quality are first rate on this disc. The colours arebright and the detail very crisp. The 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen presentation is essential forPhillip Noyce‘s films as he always shoots in Panavision and anything lessthan the full width completely ruins the presentation – one wonders why the PALLaserdisc of Sliver was around 2.00:1.The average bitrate is fairly steady 7.69Mb/s.
The Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound (English and German) also delivers whether it’s in the action scenes, directionaleffects or the excellent soundtrack with tracks from David Bowie, SneakerPimps, Orbital and Duran Duran. The Czechs get Dolby Surround only.
Extras :The only extras here are a 2-minute Trailer and a feature-lengthDirector’s Commentary in which Noyce claims that Val Kilmer iseasily able to metamorphosise into somebody else, after his performancesas Doc Holiday inTombstoneand Jim Morrison in The Doors, but Kilmer’s hopeless here!
The disc could do with another 10-15 chapters as there’s only 21 spreadthroughout the 2-hour film, with one at the end for trailers of Mission:Impossible and The Ghost And The Darkness.
Subtitles are available in English (and hard of hearing), Arabic, Bulgarian,Danish, Dutch, Finnish, German, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Swedish andTurkish.
The disc also contains a basic static and silent menu with a shot of thefront cover and the usual options.
Overall, this is a film which goes from scene to scene with new disguises forKilmer and new gadgets for him to fool the bad guys with. Unfortunately, whilethe quality of the disc is flawless, the soundtrack superb – and the Russianlocations captivating, the film recorded on it fails to excite, intrigue orgain any interest from the viewer. Part of this blame might be attributed toa re-shot ending after the original ending, in which Elisabeth Shue’s characterwas murdered, faired badly in test audiences. I’d have considered that a bonus.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.